Summer Celebration 2013

Last Tuesday, the Orchard Garden welcomed guests to the garden for the 3rd Annual Summer Celebration. With the help of 6 fantastic enhanced practicum students (teachers to-be, participating an informal learning situation), we put together a great program. 

Heather and Vivian harvesting kohlrabi

Djamila's growing garden

An article about a great school garden in Portland, where Djamila Moore is now the school garden teacher! High praise for the garden came from Michelle Obama...now they just need to have a teaching space beyond the hallway.
Good luck, Djamila and Abernethy Elementary School! Keep us posted on how things go.

And, coming soon: A great video of Djamila talking about her work in Portland.

Student teachers prepare for the garden party: Week 2

Karine works in the herb garden

This week we worked at planning The Summer Celebration event that will be at the Orchard Garden on Tuesday, June 25 from 12-2pm. The difficulty we had in planning this event is that we are unsure about the number of people who will be visiting and/or the age range of the visitors. We therefore decided to go with activities that would be interesting for a wide range of ages and easy to adapt for various audiences. The plan is to have a tea table by our newly revamped herb garden where we will be serving both hot and iced teas made out of the herbs in the garden. We also planned an art table using materials from the garden, a food table where we will be serving food from the garden, a storytelling space under a special mulberry tree, and a bugs' life table at which we will be discussing the roles of bees and other bugs in the garden. Hopefully, we will have enough visitors to promote this really cool educational garden. 

Job posting: Landed Learning project at the UBC Farm

Intergenerational Landed Learning Project : Position Title – Landed Learning Communications Assistant

The Intergenerational Landed Learning Project, a garden-based learning program and research project of the UBC Faculty of Education is currently  accepting applications for the position of Landed Learning Communications Assistant for the 2013-14 school year.  Landed Learning partners children with community volunteers to learn together by growing, cooking, and eating local food at the UBC Farm.  The Landed Learning Communications Assistant will attend and photograph the activities of the project, including weekly Farm visits on Wednesdays and Thursdays, 9:30am-3:30pm, September-October 2013 and February-June 2014. The successful candidate will assist in the documentation and communication of project activities, objectives, and outcomes through web-based media and written reports. 

Position Details

• Start Date: September 2013
• Part-time (~20 hours/week), Sept-Oct and Feb-June; possibility of work in November-Jan.
• Must be available 9am-3pm Wednesdays and Thursdays; remaining hours are flexible during the week.
• Suitable for a UBC undergraduate or graduate student.
• Wage: $14-15 per hour, depending on experience.

How to Apply

E-mail a cover letter and a resume clearly detailing your experiences and qualifications for this position to Stacy Friedman at landedlearning@gmail.com :

• Attach to the email a single PDF document that contains your cover letter and resume. Ensure your name is included in the file name.
• Ensure your e-mail subject line clearly refers to the position title for which you are applying.
• Include a copy of the cover letter in the body of your application email.
• Applications must be received no later than 5pm, Monday, June 24, 2013.
• Interviews will take place the week of July 2. Only applicants selected for interviews will be contacted.
• Please no phone calls.

More information about the Intergenerational Landed Learning Project can be found at: http://m2.edcp.educ.ubc.ca/llp2012/

Hawai'i School Garden Network

Thank you to Djamila, our recent graduate and now garden coordinator in Portland, for sharing information about this amazing initiative, the Hawai'i school garden network (http://www.kohalacenter.org/HISGN/home.html).

The Hawai'i school garden network offers perhaps one of the only year-long teacher education programs geared toward garden-based education. The program is called Ku Aina Pa (Standing firmly in knowledge upon the land) and also includes a yearly symposium. The website offers an exhaustive list of curriculum resources for teachers.

If you haven't already visited our resource page, go to it for a list of websites & books all related to garden-based, outdoor, environmental education. If you see something missing, let us know and we'll update our page!

Week One: A Teacher Candidate in the garden

The poppies in the Garden...

I am a UBC Teacher Candidate starting my field to fork to field community experience and I have to say this first week has gone by really quickly. At the beginning of the week we met all the lovely people of the Orchard Garden and of the Think and Eat Green projects who shared their passion for the environment, gardening, food sustainability and children with us. After familiarizing ourselves with our own little section of project, we were sent to our own placements, which for me was the Orchard Garden and gave us lots of latitude to decide the nature of our own project. 

Enhanced Practicum Take 2

Last week, the Orchard Garden welcomed our three elementary school teacher practicum students. They will be working with us for the next three weeks in workshops and hands-on garden work as part of learning about teaching in an informal setting. We are running workshops on many things, from local garden histories, to how to start a school garden. And of course, lots of digging in the dirt.

Summer Celebration time at the garden! June 25

This has been a wonderful spring and the gorgeous Orchard Garden is teeming with life. Come and celebrate the arrival of summer with us at the garden on June 25 from 12-2pm. Light refreshments, snacks from the garden, activities, tours, music, and a time to meet the student gardeners and educators who run this incredible project!

Everyone is welcome.

This is our third annual summer solstice celebration at the garden, though it may be our last...

Travel to garden parties past on our blog...2011 & 2010.

Weaving your own bike basket from invasives

Here are instructions for weaving an entire bike basket from invasive species, thanks to Todd De Vries and the Urban Weavers.

Urban Weavers bike basket

Some people may be interested in this as part of the enhanced practicum...?

UBC Board of Governors report on the Orchard Commons building

A number of us met today in the Orchard Garden with Dave English from UBC Properties Trust and others involved with the core sampling and other plans regarding the Orchard Commons buildings and the proposed UBC Vantage College.

FYI, here is a link to a report to the Board of Governors about these plans. The proposed 1000 international students at Vantage College are expected to pay $8,400,000 annually for 12 months'  rent of 350 square foot single residence rooms, $6,800,000 for meal plans, and $10,000,000 in tuition.

http://bog2.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2013/05/2.3_2013.06_Orchard-Commons.pdf